People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.

The conjuror or con man is a very good provider of information. He supplies lots of data, by inference or direct statement, but it's false data. Scientists aren't used to that scenario. An electron or a galaxy is not capricious, nor deceptive; but a human can be either or both.

The only difference is that religion is much better organized and has been around much longer, but it's the same story with different characters and different costumes.

We have fought long and hard to escape from medieval superstition. I, for one, do not wish to go back.

A quick example of that is a woman who said she'd been healed of throat cancer where the faith healer admitted he touched her on the forehead.

Blind belief can be comforting, but it can easily cripple reason and productivity, and stop intellectual progress.

Nostradamus himself confessed that the vague manner in which he wrote his "prophecies" was so that 'they could not possibly be understood until they were interpreted after the event and by it.'